Background: Senate Bill 18 would require age verification by websites containing material harmful to minor
Our position: The ACLU of South Dakota opposes Senate Bill 18. While intended to protect minors, Senate Bill 18 undermines the privacy and First Amendment rights of South Dakotans. The bill could have a chilling effect on free expression online.
If passed, Senate Bill 18 would require websites containing material “harmful to minors” to create and implement an age verification process to determine that an individual is 18 years old or older. Age verification requires adults to digitally provide a driver’s license or other personal identification in order to view constitutionally protected content. The verification can be done using a state issued ID, military ID, bank account information, or credit or debit information.
Senate Bill 18 bill requires age verification for adults to access “material harmful to minors.” The term “material harmful to minors” is incredibly broad and reaches far beyond its intended target of pornography. Not all material harmful to minors constitutes pornography. In fact there are countless examples of protected speech that would be inappropriately restricted if this bill becomes law. As written, this bill could apply to porn sites, as well as sexual health organizations, sites that host R-rated movies, and any website that contains nudity or descriptions of sexual organs or activities.
Young people deserve our protection and support, but age-gating the Internet is not the answer. Rather than creating a digital surveillance state that imperils us all, we must shape a safer Internet through evidence-based approaches that give control to people, not the government, like voluntary content-filtering and parental controls.
Age verification laws are ineffective at achieving their stated goal of preventing minors from accessing adult content, but they are effective at violating adults’ rights to access constitutionally protected speech.
Adults in America have a First Amendment right to read about sexual health, see R-rated movies, watch porn, and otherwise access information about sex if they want to. They should be allowed to exercise that right as they see fit, without having to worry about exposing their personal identifying information in the process.
